The Secret of the Haunted Mirror - M. V. Carey [16]
“What happened?” asked Bob. “We saw Santora go back into the hotel. Did he meet the burglar?”
Pete didn’t answer right away. He only stared down at his hands. They were trembling.
“What is it?” asked Bob.
“Did you … did you see that crook come out?” asked Pete shakily.
“No. Isn’t he with Santora?”
Pete shook his head. “I … I called the desk clerk,” he said. “That little guy … he must have got out through the service door.”
“Master Pete, what happened?” said Worthington.
A siren wailed down the boulevard and a police car screamed its way through the traffic and drew up at the front of the hotel.
“The burglar,” said Pete breathlessly. “He tried to kill Santora. At least, he hit him an awful wallop. I didn’t hang around. I … I couldn’t. I mean, it would look really bad if they found me in that room. Santora — he was bleeding all over the place!”
Chapter 7
The Ghost in the Glass
AFTER BOB AND PETE LEFT the Darnley house with Worthington, Jupiter Jones prowled through the mansion making sure that the doors were locked and bolted, that the grillwork on the windows was secure. He roamed the shadowy rooms, trying to ignore the sensation that there was motion all about him — motion on every side, as if the old house pulsed with a sinister life of its own. He reminded himself, again and again, that it was all the result of the mirrors — mirrors everywhere in which only his own reflection moved.
Then he stood in the library and listened. He could hear Jean and Mrs. Darnley in the kitchen at the other end of the house. They were clattering about, putting dishes on the table there. The refrigerator door slammed and the exhaust fan over the stove hummed. These were simple, everyday sounds, comforting and warm. Yet they seemed alien in this place where, in spite of locks and bars and solid walls, someone or something seemed able to appear at will.
Thunder rumbled far off to the north, and there was another shadow in the goblin glass. It was Jeff Parkinson; he had come into the library.
“It’ll be dark early tonight,” said Jeff.
“Yes,” said Jupe. “Unless the storm blows over.”
Jeff’s face was a bit pinched. He spoke as if straining for some ordinary remark. “I thought it didn’t rain in California in the summertime.”
“It doesn’t often,” said Jupiter Jones.
“Grandma’s got supper ready,” said Jeff. “We’re going to eat in the kitchen. There aren’t any mirrors there. I think right now she doesn’t want to see any more mirrors.”
Jupe nodded and followed Jeff down the long corridor, past Mrs. Darnley’s carefully arranged settings for her treasured mirrors, and into the big, brightly-lit kitchen. John Chan was not expected to return to the house until morning, and a bureau had been shoved in front of the door that led from the kitchen out to the garage.
Mrs. Darnley had been wearing a light summer suit when she returned from her shopping trip with Jean. Now she had on slacks and a shirt that managed to be perfectly plain and at the same time extremely expensive-looking. Her silver-gold hair was pulled back and pinned up in a knot at the nape of her neck.
“We won’t see any ghost here,” Mrs. Darnley said, as she put a platter of scrambled eggs down on the table. “I think I’m glad that John won’t let me put mirrors in the kitchen.”
“You’ve seen an apparition in only one looking-glass,” Jupe reminded her. “The Chiavo glass.”
She sat down. At that moment she appeared tired, old and worn. “Sometimes,”
she said, “I think that all of my mirrors are haunted. Sometimes, when I’m alone, when you children aren’t here, I feel as if I’m the ghost.”
Jupiter Jones felt a sudden stirring of alarm. Had his client become so involved with her world of mirrors that the real world was slipping away from her? “Mrs.
Darnley,” he said quickly, “you never have seen a ghost in any mirror before?” he asked.
She looked at him and her expression, which had been absently dreamy, sharpened. She smiled. “No, Jupiter. I haven’t. But in this house I see myself coming and going more often than anyone needs to, and I guess I think too much about those